For anatomical regions comprising an intricate branching structure, such as a lung or a group of blood vessels, it has typically been diagnostically useful to obtain information about the branching structure at a plurality of specific locations along the branching structure. For example, a radiologist may currently examine parameters such as a wall thickness, a lumen area, and a ratio of the wall area to the lumen area for studies involving the lung. Typically, it has been the responsibility of the radiologist to manually evaluate one or more locations in each individual branch in order to see if a parameter value falls within an expected range. By manually identifying locations where the parameter value is outside of the expected range, the radiologist is able to target the specific portions of the anatomical region that need to be investigated more closely.
However, as three-dimensional imaging modalities have improved, the amount of data for the radiologist to review and evaluate has drastically increased. It is no longer practical to have the radiologist manually check hundreds or even thousands of locations within a particular branching structure in order to see if the parameter value falls within the expected range. The problem is that current three-dimensional imaging modalities provide the radiologist with more information than can be efficiently processed by manual methods.